Day

Slept in. Tried calling Darkside, got the voicemail. Said hi to Darkside's voicemail.

Zoomed out to the plasma place, and got there just in time for the evening rush. Did a lot of waiting. Last time's main movie was Stripes; this time I saw quite a bit of some random Jackie Chan movie. I finished up reading The Tower at Stony Wood -- for whatever reason, Patricia McKillip's books feel like they have come from 30 years ago -- the art, the style, and everything. Her writing continues to fail to leave a strong impression on my brain, story-wise. It reads like a dream, oddly enough. And I sometimes have to wrench myself out of there with a headache, with either a very short time or a very long time passing...

I made it to writing group on time, rather than early or late. We hacked out book order. It was very odd for me to compare the angry poem to That Idiot Shawn with my reverent, loving poem to Darkside, written perhaps five or six years apart. I think the happy love poem may wind up being called "Untitled Document", because it speaks about reading one's beloved. After all that work, I didn't wind up reading the new edit of "Dogfire". Next week I'm going to be sharing my cute dark little fanfic that's still in beta, see what they have to say.

witchofrock was there, and she gave me a lift home. We schemed -- oh, damn, and I forgot the hangers again. Fountains and so forth...

When I got home, I learned that my cellphone is not lost somewhere around the house, but is instead in the hands of person or persons unknown. *growl*

We headed to the CompUSA store on short notice and even shorter schedule (8:26, store closes at 9:00) and were out of the house in what felt like under 30 seconds, in good order. We learned that we can't exchange the part at the storefront, as they don't keep that one in stock (and therefore it makes just as much sense for me to send the thing back to the online place, because the store would have to do the same). I did get Marx a burner and some discs for it. We hit Trader Joe's right after that, and I got a pizza stone and some chocolate.

Then, home. Supper. Reading friends page, playing Mozaki Blocks.

Tomorrow: work. Going in at 2:00. Payday, yay me.

Dreams: Yay, Hogwarts!

Dreamed I was at Hogwarts or something similar. Only the building was modeled after my old high school. And instead of there being Draco Malfoy with his obnoxious father hanging about, there was Darkside Malfoy instead, with his obnoxious father hanging about.

Since it was Hogwarts, I was obviously Hermione, and I was lectured at for using magic in the halls to put my gear away in my locker. Specifically, for using my wand to do it. "But look, Headmaster, I can do it wandless, too!"

I was generally admonished for being a smartass.

And then there was Darkside. We were talking (and no matter who he is, we're always friends...) and we knotted our respective courage together, and somehow one of us or the other got up the courage to give the other a gentle, scared, sacred kiss...

That broke the dam. Always those gentle, chaste kisses (high school hallways, not your best place to be exploring a relationship with a very shy young man) but we were Together. He stole time in between changing printer paper for his father (the printer room was in the old GT room, and his father had the room across from that as an office) to kiss me.

Stuff happened (there was an Enemy without, and a traitor within the walls) and I was walking around the school glowing (figuratively), and was close to figuring out the mystery, when I woke up.

Walking Thursday

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Off to work...

1) Steal underpants.
2) ??
3) Profit!

New Drugs for Women (Fwd:)

NEW DRUGS FOR WOMEN:

D A M N I T O L
Take 2 and the rest of the world can go to hell for up to 8 full hours.

ST. M O M M A'S W O R T
Plant extract that treats mom's depression by rendering preschoolers unconscious for up to two days.

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Found Poetry

From some spam...
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"below truth" and "remembrance youth" are the word combinations that I want to keep.

IT Professional

I sort of met the IT guy at work today. (IT = Information Technology, which is a recent alphabet soup, and one I'm picking up by exposure rather than by active choice.)

I work as a market research representative for a certain decently large market research company. Namely, I am one of the goons who sits in a little booth with a computer in front of me and a small phone console next to me, and the big computer in the back room dials your (chosen by randomly selecting the last four digits, when the random phone number generator is given the area code and first three digits of the area we want to be dialing) number just at dinner time, and hands the call over to me when someone or something picks up. I ask nosy questions about your preferences in fast food dining, sportswear, beer, insurance, or any other random topic that someone has hired us to care about, but never attempt to sell you jack.

Given that there are computers in the equation, there has to be an IT guy or two around. Under normal circumstances, they do their work invisibly -- perhaps gliding in to remove a machine that's gone tits-up, or quietly returning a fixed machine. Usually they do this after hours, or poke at things remotely. Hell, the machines themselves are deliberately bare-bones -- the vast majority of them don't even have so much as a removable media drive. (A few of the older ones have CD drives, but none of the new ones have even that.) It makes just as much sense to sign in remotely and do things.

Now, today I noticed in my general area that there was one man who did not quite fit. I did not recognize him. He was dressed in reasonably sharp Business Casual. He had something approximating the Clone Haircut, and by the sharply visible layers in the short haircut, I could tell that it was fresh. He wasn't wearing a phone headset. This would be in contrast to your typical interviewer -- we're a very mixed bunch, casually dressed, and all with our headsets on, unless we're slacking off and don't feel like hiding it. He was being perfectly quiet and bending over the keyboard in a businesslike fashion, though, so I soon tuned him out.

This nearly caused me to miss out on all the fun. There was a CRASH! from somewhere behind me, and I turned around to see the spiffy young man standing behind his fallen desk chair. As I watched, he yanked the chair up and slammed it with more than necessary force back into the booth, then turned to the slim tower of the computer. He pulled it forward, and yanked the connections out of the back with furious precision, tucked the computer under his arm, and strode off with great purpose.

The fellow in the booth next to mine had also been watching the proceedings. I turned to him, and commented, "I think that was the IT guy."

"I think it might be time for a new one," my neighbor said, as we turned back to our work.